The Last Chapter by J. Doyle Pennyrose

Available from Abebooks and Fordham University Press

Book Length: 336 pages

Those monks of the Middle Ages! Men often admired for preserving culture and promoting sanctity, but beyond this surface level image many know little of their system of education, their spirituality, and their world. To find such ignorance in a secular mind is pitiful, but in a Catholic mind it is almost unforgivable. For the monastics are truly among our fathers in faith, not only in civilization; we, the rightful heirs of their tradition, therefore owe them something more than elementary familiarity. A great remedy has been left to us in the The Love of Learning and the Desire for God by Benedictine monk Jean Leclercq, for within these pages he has not only left us a vivid historical study of these men, but an inspiring light to us who so desperately suffer from the ostracization of the religious life in our decadent society.

For the many who have been educated according to the utilitarian manner which is so repulsively popular in our times, the idea that the learning of grammar can be anything beyond a necessary chore at best is simply alien. The deeper truth of this issue is ignored for the sake of not forcing children to do anything too “boring”; this truth being that language influences thought as thought influences language. If the learning of language is stifled, so too will the development of thought in the mind of the student. This crippling of the intellect has horrible ramifications if it is not corrected, for it will place the young person in a position wherein their access to the literature of higher culture shall be made needlessly complicated, if not impossible. But this stunting is not only an intellectual problem—it is a spiritual one as well, for if one finds Longfellow indecipherable, what will they make of the Bible?

The monks understood this problem—how could they avoid it in the aftermath of the Western Empire’s fall, that span of several centuries of chaos within which the total annihilation of learning was a real possibility? They thus prioritized the education of grammar among themselves, for as Leclercq describes:¹

How does grammar help one get to Heaven? By making possible the reading of the Scripture and the Fathers, it becomes a means for salvation and takes on sublime dignity. It is a gift of God, like His word itself, from which it cannot be separated since it furnishes the key to it.

(52)

It has been said that in prayer we speak to God, and in spiritual reading God speaks to ourselves: but if we cannot construct a sentence, we cannot speak to God nor can we listen to His voice. There is then real spiritual value in knowing grammar, for without this “sublime dignity”, one stands barred from the palace of celestial riches that is spiritual reading. But if we know grammar, then we are able to pass through its stately portals, and amid the cool air of lush gardens, to take up and read God’s Word. Language indeed is a gift which He has given us; therefore it ought to be respected as one.

The monks, however, not only took those works within the library of the Church as their models of grammar; for they also found among the great pagan writers sound examples of expression and thought. Indeed, there were some cenobites who voiced understandable reservations—in doing so, they prudently foresaw the dangers that would really occur in the Renaissance’s enthusiastic embrace of Antiquity, such as the neglect of the wisdom of the Scriptures in favor of the writings of the intelligent yet unenlightened Roman and Greek sages. Overall, however, there developed an attitude of optimism towards these authors. Defining this, Leclercq states:

The optimism consists in thinking that everything true or good or simply beautiful that was said, even by pagans, belongs to the Christians. In conformity with this principle, St. Jerome quoted the auctores, praised their virtues, compared the Prophets’ figures of speech with the hyperboles and apostrophes of Virgil, called attention with evident gratification to the fact that Solomon recommends the study of philosophy and that St. Paul quotes verses by Epimenides, Menander and Aratus. St. Augustine likewise pointed out that the sacred authors used the same literary methods as the pagan authors of antiquity. All that was valuable in pagan literature was compared by the Fathers and the medieval authors to the treasures of the Egyptians that the Hebrews were authorized to take with them at the time of the Exodus.

(121)

Being close to the flames of Divine Love by virtue of their spiritual lives, the monks were all the more attuned to recognizing where the minds and hearts of the pagans sought the truth that all men yearn for. It is not the riches of this life nor the pleasures of sensuality the finest authors of those times yearned for, but the same Eternal Love that the Three Wise Men encountered in the flesh on the Epiphany. The tragedy of war was immortalized by Homer, and underlying that tragedy is (following the absence of the light of Relevation) the ultimate uncertainty of what becomes the souls of men after this life—a question that continued to deeply trouble the pagan Greeks authors who followed him in succeeding generations. Then the Romans took to letters, recording therein their search for a higher order, Virgil the greatest among them; Virgil, who so beautifully voiced the hopes of “every creature” that “groaneth and travaileth in pain” (Romans 8:22) before the Incarnation:²

A golden Progeny from Heav’n descends;
O chaste Lucina speed the Mother’s pains,
And haste the glorious Birth; thy own Apollo reigns!
The lovely Boy, with his auspicious Face,
Shall Pollio’s Consulship and Triumph grace;
Majestick Months set out with him to their appointed Race.
The Father banish’d Virtue shall restore,
And Crimes shall threat the guilty world no more.
The Son shall lead the life of Gods, and be
By Gods and Heroes seen, and Gods and Heroes see.
The jarring Nations he in peace shall bind,
And with paternal Virtues rule Mankind.
Unbidden Earth shall wreathing Ivy bring,
And fragrant Herbs (the promises of Spring)
As her first Off’rings to her Infant King.

(Eclogue IV. 10-24)

The profound and admirable styles of these authors, then, were crafted to voice meditation upon ennobling matters. Despite many a sage among them, however, this was a question that could only be solved, not by tomes nor by oratorical science, but by the seven last words of Jesus, the Son of Mary. In their attempts to preserve the extensive literature that preceded them, the monks therefore did well to save the records of Antiquity’s anxious laboring for the truth as well as the ascendant vigor of Christendom.

How, then, did the monks view the library of the Church? Not only did they know the Bible, they truly loved it; their familiarity with the Scriptures was not an artificial flair forged (as is the case with many a heretical street-preacher today) to impress the minds of men, but was the result of attentive study and devotion. Out of this sincere interaction with Holy Writ and their contact with the writings of the Church Fathers came their sense of interpretation. Explaining their understanding of the Old and New Testaments, Leclercq relates that:

…[T]he New Testament is the norm by which we must interpret the Old which cannot fully be explained without reference to the New, or as if the New did not exist. On the other hand, the New Testament itself is much better understood if we recall what came before it. The figure contained the truth while concealing it; truth unveils the figure and shows forth its meaning; once revealed, the figure in turn illuminates the Truth. This turning back to the figures is not without value for they are a means by which the truth may be the better seen and the better appreciated. Thus, preoccupation with studying the Old Testament as if it were an historical document, for the information it gives us on “the history of the Hebrew people,” is foreign to the Middle Ages. The texts of the Old Testament must have a figurative meaning, and often have no other. At times, then, they may have a double meaning, historical and figurative, and at others only a figurative meaning but never a meaning which is purely historical.

(87-88)

Their sense of the interconnectedness of the two parts of Sacred Scripture ought to sound quite reminiscent to ourselves, for much of it is what we believe. The standard they held should also serve as a healthy reminder, for if they cared too little about the actual history of the ancient Israelites, there is a tendency today to care too much for this history to the point of rendering the Old Testament a means to ingrain philosemitism among Catholics.

Concerning their attitudes towards the Patristic sources, Leclercq adds in a later section that:

The monks knew and loved the patristic writings whose literary quality they appreciated—the study of grammar is responsible for this—and whose religious significance satisfied the desire for God which monastic life fostered: that is eschatology’s contribution. Nor is their knowledge of the Fathers just bookish learning, limited to the realm of erudition. The part played by what can be called the living tradition in the continuity of Western monasticism to the past of the whole Church must not be underestimated. It is often affirmed that monasticism maintained tradition by copying, reading and explaining the works of the Fathers, and that is correct; but it did so also through living by what these books contained.

(113)

Thus, fidelity to the Bible and Sacred Tradition were foundational to the monks’ piety—and in turn, their piety influenced their study of these two sources. Even men who are not called to the religious life would do well to imitate the general attitude of the monks in their intellectual and spiritual labors: we must not only read spiritual books, but open ourselves to the Holy Ghost in doing so, that we may truly love—and therefore be moved to imitate—the truths that these writings contain, not settling for merely going through the motions of reading them. A secular academic can read the Bible or the Confessions of St. Augustine, but that does not mean they will live out what these works contain; we Catholics, on the other hand, really believe what they contain. These books are our teachers, given to us to help us navigate the narrow way—not texts to be dispassionately consulted as sources for an essay.

The monks themselves have much to teach us as well in the realm of theology, the queen of the sciences. Their views were conservative in the truest sense of that term, concerning themselves with maintaining tradition with an ardent flame of devotion: this then explains the more personal and mystical aspects of their theology. However, the mystical aspect ought not to be confused for enthusiastic sensationalism, nor the personal aspect be reduced to the Protestant obsession for a “private” faith; these were men who lived, taught, and prayed in common, who saw the potential dangers that come with theological speculation and thus swerved from it out of respect for the Scriptures and Sacred Tradition. Writing about this dynamic, Leclercq explains and provides this example among others:

…[W]hen Baldwin of Ford at the end of the twelfth century spoke at length on the mystery of the altar, he did not dwell on the “scientific” questions which the Berengarian controversy had made the principle topic of scholastic discussions on the Eucharist: the separation of substance from accidents, the role of “quantity,” the multiplication of the real presence and its relation to place. What interests Baldwin primarily is not the way in which the Eucharistic mystery takes place; it is the mystery itself and its connection with the other mysteries in the totality of the Christian Mystery. The monks kept themselves informed as to these problems and the solutions which were proposed for them but these were considered as secondary matters in relation to the content of Revelation itself and the illumination which was obtained through contemplation…

(212)

What then deeply concerned these men was not the letter of the theological science, but the spirit of it. Their means of elucidating and defending the Faith were not the same as the scholastics, for they were crafted towards different ends; it would seem that while the monks generally expressed the interior life of the Church, the scholastics had a tendency to express the exterior life. For instance, St. Bernard wrote mostly for the edification of his brethren, while St. Thomas Aquinas composed the four books of the Summa Contra Gentiles to meet the intellectual attacks of the Mohammendans, Jews, and pagans against the religion of Christ. As Leclercq points out, however, the scholastics and the monks ultimately upheld the unity of faith:

We must reiterate that there is but one theology. For all, there is the one faith laboring upon the same truths and in the same Church. But those who are by profession spiritual men, oriented by their vocation exclusively toward the search for God, can, in exercise of this faith, in the practice of equally religious reflection, reach a higher mode. Accordingly St. Bernard begins his Sermons on the Canticle with these words: “To you, brothers, I must say something different from what I say to others, or, in any case, I must say it in a different way.”

(218)

Such words rightly apply to the understandable theological and intellectual differences between the monks and the inheritors of the scholastic tradition in our time.

Among many other things, this work does well to reveal the importance of the religious life in not only the realm of the Church, but also that of civil society. Moreover, there is perhaps another less obvious connection that can be made to the present after reading this vivifying text—that is, to understand the ongoing Crisis in the Church insofar as it can be understood, we must view it as a mystery. (Those who have learned of the Passion of the Church argument will more easily comprehend what follows.) In my view, it seems that since the rapid decline of monasticism since the pseudo-Council, there has been a tragic loss—though not a total annihilation—of the presence of the more mystical theology of the monks, a mode which is more spiritual than spiritual.

Within traditional circles, there is a tendency to cling to the scholastic mode—and that is not inherently wrong—but it would seem that the reflex of attempting to reason our faith that comes with this method has been abused by many to treat the present problems as if they are logical problems to be solved by means of debate. As this Crisis is not a mere theological question to be solved by disputation, and is instead—as the Arian Crisis and the Great Western Schism were to those who lived during those great struggles—a mystery, the incessant debating among the various positions along this “rationalistic” line has led to a variety of problems. In the worst degrees, these squabbles have led some to despair and outright leave the Faith because they believed that a “logical” solution would give us peace in our time. The peace they sought, however, was not the peace that God brings, because it would appear that the falling away of such souls began in their considering the institution of the Church more human than it is divine. In lesser degrees, this tendency towards reasoning our way out of the Crisis has led many laymen to waste their time arguing frankly pointless theological minutia (in view of their duty of state) and in the process they miss the forest for the trees. Considering the unfortunate divisions among the clergy of the various traditional groups and the untrustworthiness of the Novus Ordo clergy, the decision of some laymen to take this matter into their own hands, so to speak, is understandable; yet, it reveals a profound lack of balance in our present time between the two main modes of Catholic theology.

In closing, this book is a thorough and superb treatment of Medieval monasticism. Leclercq possessed a wealth of knowledge and does a fine job of delving into his subject matter; no doubt his vocation helped him to not only read and describe his historical sources, but to understand the life that animated them and render this accessible to us. Owing to its academic language and tone, however, the text will be most readily understood by Catholics who are of a scholarly disposition, and thus is highly recommended to such persons.

1. 
   

   All quotations of this work are provided from the 1962 Mentor Omega Books edition.

2. This was as close as a pagan could get to prophesying the Birth of the Savior; I thus recommend reading the whole poem to my readers without reserve, for it is edifying even for us who have the fullness of the revelation that Virgil could only aspire to.

   For reference, I have quoted the John Dryden translation of Ecologue IV:

   https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Works_of_Virgil_(Dryden)/Pastorals_(Dryden)/Book_4.